Finding Yuugo
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [Cyber Sleuth, AU] They're twins, so she can always find Yuugo inside of her...can't she?
1. 1

**A/N:** Challenges:

Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words  
Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Training Peak  
Manga/Game Flash Bingo, #025 - drama (genre)  
Ultimate Sleuth Challenge, prologue: event 1 - write about a decision of any kind

* * *

 **Finding Yuugo  
1.**

Yuugo never liked her long hair. Said it looked all wrong on him, but she could get away with his hairstyle and just chose to grow it out to be different. Which she did, in a way. Moreso she simply didn't care enough to style it to perfection and let the strands grow and collect split ends and just ran a comb and some oil through it every day and called it neat.

And then Yuuya was gone and she couldn't even look into the mirror and pretend there was him because her too long hair. So she just hacked it off. Yuuya's gentle teasing never accomplished that frustration his absence had. The long strands fell in a messy heap: over her shirt, Yuugo's sweat pants, over the sneakers and she's not sure who's sneakers she's wearing because they're the same and it really doesn't matter. When Yuugo hits his growth spurt, then it will, but as far as she knew, fifteen year olds in comas didn't go through growth spurts.

Fifteen year olds in comas also didn't stare out of a mirror reflection, but she pulled on one of Yuugo's hoodies and ruffled her now short-cropped hair and could pretend for a fleeting moment that he did.


	2. 2

**A/N:** Challenges

Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words  
Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Training Peak  
Manga/Game Flash Bingo, #065 - paltry  
Ultimate Sleuth Challenge, prologue: event 2 - write about something unwanted

* * *

 **Finding Yuugo  
2.**

They were both naturally quiet. Had to be, considering how the big empty house would echo about them. So Yuugo's absense didn't make much of a difference in the voice levels when in a crowd: at school, on the way home -

But the empty house made his absence echo just that much louder. Made her want to blast music to drown it out and she hated blasting music. But she hated that absolute silence more. Where she could hear every step and the teasing echoes that rebounded. Where she could pretend for fleeting moments that it was just Yuugo walking behind her even though he tended to walk more beside her or in front of her. And to think that would frustrate her before. Like he was trying to protect her from something.

And it wasn't even a car accident or something equally cliched that struck him down, in the end. Some sort of sickness instead that they just couldn't explain.


	3. 3

**A/N:** Challenges

Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words  
Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Training Peak  
Manga/Game Flash Bingo, #386 - cactus  
Ultimate Sleuth Challenge, prologue: event 3 - write about suddenly recalling something

* * *

 **Finding Yuugo  
3.**

She had no idea when it started, and she could kick herself ten times over for it because she _should_. Who else knows Yuugo that well? No-one.

But, apparently, she didn't know well enough either. Not well enough to stop him collapsing in the middle of the street and winding up in the ICU, at least. At the time, it had been right out of the blue. No aura, no predecessor. Just a slight teetering and then he was flat on the sidewalk and she was three steps ahead before the thump caught up to her.

Later, she slowly crawled through the days and picked up little things: the way he'd stare distantly into space, the way he'd tire out more quickly, the way his throat was more often dried and parched, the way he'd wince as though he could hear a sound she couldn't and maybe never would, and she'd wonder. She'd wonder why the _hell_ he hadn't said something to her - and why she hadn't picked it up like a good twin and called him out on it.


	4. 4

**A/N:** Challenges

Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words  
Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Training Peak  
Manga/Game Flash Bingo, #024 - bird  
Ultimate Sleuth Challenge, prologue: event 5 - write about a meeting that's not a first meeting

* * *

 **Finding Yuugo  
4.**

She was spending more time in the park, these days. The birds chirping were far less grating on her nerves than the large empty house. Across from the hospital because she kind of had to be. Not too far from Yuugo. Not too close either because she couldn't stay in the ICU all the time.

Someone plopped beside her: proof she wasn't the only one thinking so. Taller than her. Shocking red hair. A carbon copy of the boy in the bed next to Yuugo's but not. Just like her in Yuugo's hoodie and jeans and the sneakers that weren't any different.

Except the last time she'd seen him, she'd been in a dress and distinctly Yuuko. So when he struck up conversation and asked who she was, she told him she was Yuugo.


	5. 5

**A/N:** Challenges

Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words  
Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Training Peak  
Manga/Game Flash Bingo, #111 - doze  
Ultimate Sleuth Challenge, prologue: event 6 - write about a call for help

* * *

 **Finding Yuugo  
5.**

Yuugo had turned her insomniac. He'd turned her into a lot of things, over time, and she'd done the same to him. Latest was the effeminate features his ghost wore, looking less like the Yuugo she recalled and more like the one she became...

And the insomnia, because, really, Yuugo was doing enough sleeping for the both of them. But the human body could only last so long without sleep and she found herself lying awake in bed and then paying for it layer, dozing in the park or the waiting room or school and when she slept, there was a pale white boy who looked more like Yuugo than she ever could even though the colours were all wrong and he was reaching out for her -

And she bolted, because Yuugo was never, and would never be, that white. A sickly light grey in the ICU for now, but never white.


	6. 6

**A/N:** Challenges

Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words  
Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Training Peak  
Manga/Game Flash Bingo, #273 - dog  
Ultimate Sleuth Challenge, ch 1: event 2 - write about the effects of curiosity  
The Easter Egg Basket (2016), day 21 - write a drabble a day for seven days (day 2)

* * *

 **Finding Yuugo  
6.**

The park grew stale. The dogs followed her with their beady eyes like she was a predator and the birds flew out of sight. They knew something was wrong. Knew she didn't fit in Yuugo's hoodie and Yuugo's jeans and Yuugo's sneakers and the faint smell of Yuugo's hospital room (and that doesn't measure up to his, because he's been in there for weeks now and nowhere else and she's an intermittent visitor at best) -

But they don't growl, don't squawk, because she's no threat to them, just an uncomfortable ghost. And maybe they're confused. She's a contradiction to their simple minds and stronger senses. That boy couldn't tell the difference because her disguise was so flawless to him but the animals can smell the difference, can sense it with some other well honed sense -

And they watch her, waiting for the other shoe to drop and it makes her skin tingle and her feet move faster because they know something, or they're guessing, but they won't say.

And unless it's news of Yuugo waking up, she doesn't want to know anyway.white.


	7. 7

**A/N:** Challenges

Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words  
Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Training Peak  
Manga/Game Flash Bingo, #498 - pretty  
Ultimate Sleuth Challenge, ch 1: event 5 - write the beginnings of an adventure  
The Easter Egg Basket (2016), day 21 - write a drabble a day for seven days (day 4)

* * *

 **Finding Yuugo  
7.**

The news of the white boy spread over the net and she followed closely, waiting for the proof that might never come. And it hadn't, yet. Sightings and that was all they were. Rumours spiralling out of control without a care of who they struck and hurt.

Well, she'd have to fix that, then. And find Yuugo as well. And they weren't the same, though no-one else had said. No-one else knew him that well. They just said a boy wearing a hooded top and pants and sneakers and pale under all of it.

Some even entertained the notion that it was a girl under those clothes, and the thought made her laugh. It was the other way around, after all.


	8. 8

**A/N:** Challenges

Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words  
Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Training Peak  
Manga/Game Flash Bingo, #385 - bustling  
Ultimate Sleuth Challenge, ch 1: event 6 - write about an awkward interaction  
The Easter Egg Basket (2016), day 21 - write a drabble a day for seven days (day 5)

* * *

 **Finding Yuugo  
8.**

The hospital was turning into a zoo. It was almost disgusting, but they gave her nothing and took nothing away. She still made it through to the ICU, to pale lost Yuugo lying in his bed like sleeping beauty.

She couldn't wear his hood or pants though, not with tales of the ghost. She had to go in her own darker attires: skirts and dresses but she kept his shoes, cold without his feet and burning like smelling salts without his scent.

But then someone stopped her. A tall woman, who seemed to know more than she implied. Who asked about who she came to visit. And about the white boy ghost. She felt like a scolded schoolgirl under the other woman's gaze but she held her ground. Lied and said she knew as much as every plain Jane and John wandering the halls.

And then she fled before the other woman could realise that one plus one, in this crazy world, somehow equalled three.


End file.
